Part 5

The comradeship of these two lasted long and only came near to its end when they cornered the great timber wolf in the sheep pen. This was Dan's crowning achievement, and no one was more proud of him than was the brave and courteous Denmark, who always gave to the shepherd dog the full credit of having planned the whole thing. To rid the countryside of this last wolf had been Dan's great desire. No one but he was really sure of the wolf's existence. The time had passed when the terrible packs of wolves descended on the sheep, and when the belated traveler over the snowy roads was in peril of his life from these stalking, famished enemies. But the shepherds were by no means sure that the wolves were entirely gone, and when they sat by the fireside telling stories of the dangers and hardships of the old days, they would always end by admitting that not yet were the terrible marauders hunted down.

Dan's back would bristle as he lay by the fire, and he would pound his tail up and down on the hearth as if he entirely agreed. Could he have spoken, he would have told them that often he had smelt the track of something that was not a bear nor a fox. Then his blood would freeze in his veins when the shepherds, talking in their slow way between sips of ale, told how powerful and ferocious the wolf can be. They knew of wolves that had snapped a dog's head nearly clean off the body with just one flash of their terrible jaws. And they agreed that a wolf could not be overpowered by any dog alone.

Dan always came to one conclusion in these recitals. If ever he could find the wolf, and could employ his friend Denmark to help him, they would show their masters that two dogs, at any rate, could get the best of the timber wolf.

It came about at last that a long, heavy winter drove the wolf to bolder and more risky operations among the sheepfolds. He ventured from the dark, forest lairs closer and closer to the sheep pens and the shepherd huts. The dogs knew this. But in the daytime the wolf was gone far beyond the barriers of the steep cliffs of the mountains. And at night the dogs could never venture far afield, for it was their duty to stay close by the barns and the pens where the sheep were sheltered.

With the coming of spring, Dan's master had to spend many a night at a pen some distance from the home. Down close to the shore he kept another flock and in it were many little lambs that were sick. For in the spring it is a common thing for the lambs that are winter-born to be stricken with a sickness which only the best shepherds can cure. Dan's master was up and about at all hours of the night, and poor Dan was greatly concerned in his efforts to keep guard over two folds. But if his dear master would take no sleep, Dan would take none. He was as wakeful and anxious as though he owned the sick lambs himself.

It was well past midnight and the air was full of the wet odors which denote the melting snows and the first coming of spring. As Dan was trotting up the path from the lower fold, a whiff of that strange and terrible odor which he knew to be the scent of the wolf, came to his sensitive nostrils. He stood still. He snuffed the ground around him, but he found no track. The wolf was near, but where?

Then a thought came to him. First, he must get Denmark. It would take him but a few moments to run across to the neighboring farm, and now was the time to put his plan into execution. He was much disturbed in his mind, however, for he had never before left his master at night. But the necessity was a pressing one.

Down the path and across the fields he ran, and came to Denmark's home. The great dog was lying by the barn door, under a little shelter which formed a kennel. He was wide awake and felt very much alert. He confessed to Dan that he felt particularly nervous about something. Yes, he was sure he could scent the wolf on the stagnant, heavy air.

Back they ran, their tails lowered, and their noses to the ground, for this was no hour to play. Once they were in sight of the hut where the shepherd and the little lambs were housed, Dan explained his plan.

"My master will presently go into that tiny room just beyond the pen where the ewes and the sick lambs are. He will lie down, and unless the lambs bleat again before morning, he will not wake up, for he is dead tired. He knows that I am close and on guard, and so he does not trouble himself about that shaky old door to the fold. The wolf could nose it open and not half try. But the wolf won't come here unless he thinks I am watching up at the big pen. So I shall go up there. You climb the steep steps that lead to the loft over the straw beds where the sick lambs are. Go softly, and wait. I will follow the wolf down here if he comes. And if he gets inside the pen, you spring down on him from the loft."

All this the canny shepherd dog had schemed and perfected as he was running after his friend. It was too good to be true, he felt, that here at last was the chance he had hoped for. And if he had ever feared the wolf, he did not fear him now, but was only afraid that the terrible creature would not appear.

Dan hid beneath his master's barn. From a corner in the heavy stone underpinning he could look down the yard to the lower pen. Nothing could approach that point without his seeing it, unless it came from the rocky shore. He waited long and the silence was unbroken save for the dripping of the water where the snow was melting on the barn roof and little rills of it spattered from the eaves.

Suddenly, so suddenly that his heart stood still, he saw two great yellow eyes staring out of the darkness. The wolf was in the yard and not ten feet from where Dan lay! Then the gleaming eyes turned and a great shadowy form hulked past. It was so huge that Dan trembled. It made no noise and moved slowly and with great caution.

Dan straightened himself out, full length, and crawled low in the mud, picking his foothold in such a way as to let no twig or pebble move under his weight. Any smallest noise would be fatal. His heart beat so fast that he could not breathe, but he stalked the terrible shadow step by step.

Suddenly he realized that if the wolf should turn, there would be no chance to escape. Perhaps the great jaws would kill him before he could even cry out, and Denmark would never know about it until too late.

The wolf's half-defined form suddenly vanished. He had made a great, silent spring into the center of the sheep pen. For such was the surpassing cunning of the wolf that he was into the pen and had seized one of the lambs all in a single leap.

There was a roar such as Dan had never heard. For Denmark had never spoken in such voice before. Then came sounds that woke up every one on the two farms and brought everybody running to the scene with lanterns and guns.

Denmark had come down on the wolf's back, and had gripped his throat. Dan rushed in and helped in pulling him down. But the damage to the dogs was frightful, for the terrible fangs of the wolf, hampered as the creature was, had ripped and torn his opponents. The three desperate animals rolled and tossed and flung themselves in such a frantic battle that the shepherd was many times thrown down in his attempts to get near them. He was afraid that he would stab the dogs instead of the wolf. But when the lights came, and the guns were pointed, there was no need of either knives or shot. The two dogs lay bleeding on the floor of the hut and the great timber wolf was twitching in death.

It was the greatest thing that the shepherds had ever heard of in their lives. They told of it for years, and Dan and Denmark became known for miles and were justly happy in their fame.

XIII

THE TRAVELS OF PRINCE FLAMINGO

The wonderful adventures and the long, beneficent reign of Prince Flamingo are matters which would be lost to the world were it not for the venerable Mrs. Leatherback.

For Mrs. Leatherback is not only the oldest and the largest of the great turtles, but she is by all odds the most distinguished, and is gifted with the most accurate power of memory. And her adventures in the five hundred years of her life have been many. She swims the great Gulf from coast to coast, she knows the islands--every one of them--she has been far up the rivers which pour their floods into the tropic seas, and every bay and lagoon knows her presence. And there is no one whose arrival is more eagerly welcomed by the little people of the lagoons and the coral coves than she. For with her vast knowledge goes a power of recital which charms her auditors; and if she chances to spend a moonlight evening by some quiet swamp, or beneath a pleasant sand dune where the breeze is good and the outlook charming, you may be sure that the intelligent and conservative members of society, such as the Cranes, the Terrapins, the Black Swans, and perhaps one of the wise Foxes, will be gathered around the distinguished visitor.

And her stories, notably that of Prince Flamingo, have gone far inland, even to the remote North; for the Heron is himself a great traveler, and it is, indeed, as he has presented the story, rather than in the words of Mrs. Leatherback, that it is generally related. Perhaps it has gained something in its travels, for time and distance lend a charm, and the coral islands are beautiful in perspective. To put it simply, you remember what the wise old Mr. Rat said as he nibbled the Dutch cheese: "The best things come from a long way off."

So it is from a remote past, and from the most lonely and most beautiful of the tropic islands that the romance of the beautiful white flamingo has traveled down to us.

There is a great lagoon or inlet of the sea which widens itself into a vast marsh on the southernmost extremity of an island. Ships could never enter its shallow waters, and it is protected on the land side by miles of dense reeds and water growth. No place in the world could be safer for the city of the flamingoes. And of all birds, the great, pink flamingoes need a secret place to build their nests and rear their young.

Their wonderful city was populous with thousands of their kind on the beautiful morning when this particular little flamingo was born. For never had a hunter penetrated to their home, and their natural enemies were few.

Great flocks of flamingoes were wheeling in long, curving lines overhead. And they were so pink against the early morning sky that you would have thought them the reflection of the rosy dawn itself. And almost as far across the lagoon as one could see, they were standing by their nests feeding their babies, or preparing for flight to the distant feeding grounds. You could see nothing but their tall, red forms, thousands of curving necks, and wide, beautiful wings.

Everybody was talking, and the confusion would have been terrible except for the fact that no one seemed to pay any attention to anybody else, and each beautiful flamingo seemed to know exactly what he was about. Hundreds of other babies were being hatched that morning, and so little White Wing (as they called him at first) attracted no attention. His mother was in a great state of delight over him, of course, and his stately father eyed him with approval. But hundreds of other parents were in the same state of mind over their young, and congratulations had long gone out of fashion.

The beautiful young father had just arrived from the distant shore and was the first to feed the pretty youngster. He curved his graceful neck downward and when he kissed the baby, as you might say, it was to put into his tiny mouth the wonderful juice of the shell fish which the great bird had been eating. While he did this the mother preened her feathers, and took a few stately steps to stretch her legs, for she had been all night on the nest, and then she wheeled in a wonderful circle over the lagoon, mounting higher and higher until at last she was in line with many flamingoes who were heading with tilted wings against the wind, on their way to the beaches and sand-bars.

The sun grew very hot and the wind died away. The waters of the lagoon flashed in the burning light, and the heat was terrible. But over the nests where the babies lay the tall birds threw their shadows, and again and again little White Wing was turned over in his bed, and he was given innumerable feedings. So at last, when the sun went down and the air grew cool, he was surprisingly different from what he had been in the morning. He was already larger, and his wings and his feet were getting strength enough so that he could move, and he had found a little voice of his own.

With successive days he grew apace, and at last he tumbled himself out of the nest and began to walk. The nest was a mound of mud and sand, for all the world like a basket of sticks and moss reposing on an inverted flower-pot, and not so high but what White Wing could struggle back into it when the heat of the day came and his watchful father took his post by the side of the little home to throw the shadow of his stately figure over it.

At first White Wing was just like the other little flamingoes, and with them he began to play on the sandy floor of the flamingo city, and with them he very soon learned to take short flights as his wings developed. But just as a hundred or so of cousins began to shed their white down and to grow very brown and fuzzy, he began to get whiter and whiter. In a few weeks they were beginning to shed their brown clothes for the beautiful pink feathers which are the proper thing for the flamingo.

Little White Wing was somewhat distressed when his playmates began to jeer at him, and it was perplexing to note a lack of affection on the part of his beautiful father and mother. For his elders were greatly embarrassed. Nothing like this had ever happened in their family. And, so far as the handsome father could learn by inquiry among the oldest birds of Flamingotown, no one had ever heard of a white flamingo. But when the neighbors cast aspersions, and hinted that there must be some common blood in that family, then the father grew angry and the gentle mother had all she could do to keep him from killing little White Wing.

Every night the little fellow would bury his head close to his beautiful mother's ear, and say:

"Don't you think, perhaps, dear mother, that I'll be pink in the morning?"

And she would tell him to hush and be quiet and go to sleep.

But when morning came he would be as white as ever, and his long sad day would begin. No one would play with him and he was soon shifting for himself. Somehow he picked up a living of tiny fish in the long pools of tide-water that the waves left in the soggy lagoon, and when all his playmates had gone to bed and it was safe to come among them, he would step home, picking his way between the nests, and trying to reach his own without calling attention to himself.

All this was hard, but it speedily grew worse. The King of the flamingoes said that the white offspring must die.

"Begone, my child, begone!" the mother whispered to him, for she had heard that little White Wing was to die. "Go away, as far as you can. Sometime it will be all right. Remember that your mother loves you."

So that ended White Wing's childhood. Even before the first streak of dawn, the beautiful young bird flew out and away. Across the lagoon, miles and miles to the westward, over a wide stretch of sea he flew until his wings could hardly bear him up. Then he sighted land, and he strained every nerve to reach it. When at last he wheeled down to the sands in the shade of a great mangrove tree, his first day's flight was finished and he was a lonely, famished bird on a strange shore.

But a deep, sweet voice suddenly came to him. At first he could not place it. Then he saw to his astonishment a huge turtle only a few yards below him on the beach.

"Ah, ha!" she was saying in her most affectionate way. "So there you are! I've heard of you. They drove you out, did they? Didn't want any variety in the family. Well, well, Sonny, cheer up."

Then this large and hearty creature pawed her way heavily up the sands, and continued her remarks:

"Funny creatures, you birds. Now look at me and consider the difference. I don't care a clam what my children look like. I'm on my way up to that sand dune this very blessed minute to lay about nine pecks of eggs. And I hope they hatch and the young ones won't get eaten up. But they can come out of that shell any color they please, for all I care. We turtles don't worry. We just float along easy. That's the way to live."

Then she gave a hearty laugh and settled down to digging a pit in the white sands.

"S'pose you run along, Sonny, and pick up your supper. I rather like my own company when I'm laying eggs. But just come back a little later and I'll tell your fortune."

No one had ever called him Sonny before, and never had he dreamed that such high good humor existed anywhere. The good old turtle and her cheerful ways had suddenly made life worth living. And poor White Wing, on coming to himself, realized that he was very hungry. He feasted, indeed, ravenously on fiddler crabs, which he otherwise would have despised, and the moon was high and he was heavy with sleep when Mrs. Turtle, after hours of scratching and pawing, had patiently buried her eggs, and was ready to talk. What she had to say was brief, but it cast the life of White Wing in strange places, and it was on her words that he made his great journey.

"You're bound to be somebody," she began. "Probably a king. But this is no place for you around here. You must go where you are wanted. And that is a long ways from this quiet spot. There's a great Emperor who has a palace by the smoking mountains. He's been wishing for a white flamingo all his life. If you can get there, why, your fortune is made. If you fly with your feet to the sunrise until you come to the great river mouth, and if you follow that river long enough, you'll see the mountains with the fiery tops. That's the place. And you want to walk right in as though you owned the kingdom. Don't be scared when you get there. Just forget about those saucy cousins of yours back home and be as grand as you know how."

Poor White Wing was almost dizzy at this unexpected vision of good things. He did not reckon on what the journey meant. But the motherly old turtle was particular to tell him of the many islands he must pass, and the dangers that he would encounter. Then she bade him God-speed, and began her toilsome way down the sands, for she was intent upon reaching deep water again.

"I have a long way to go," she said; and added that sometime they would be sure to meet again.

The second morning found White Wing far out at sea once more, straining his eyes for the island where he was to get food and water, and cherishing to himself but one idea--to reach the great Emperor who wanted a white flamingo.

After many days and nights of lonely travel, he came to a mountain solid green and black, with palms and forest trees; where there were no white shores, but a heavy marshy line of wonderful vegetation. And from the height at which he flew he could discern the muddy strip of river water which stained the blue sapphire of the ocean. This, then, was the river, and far up its course must be the mountains and the city of the great Emperor.

He was right in his conjectures. For a black bird, with a yellow bill as big as a cleaver, greeted him with familiar and jovial laughter, and told him that he was indeed on the right path. This bird was a toucan and he told many things of his family to White Wing, adding much good advice. He was distressed that the beautiful stranger would not eat bananas, and explained that he owed his good health to an exclusive fruit diet.

"But then," he admitted with a noisy laugh, "somebody must eat the fish, I'm sure. And I'm glad if you like them."

Also this happy-go-lucky toucan volunteered to guide White Wing on his flight up the valley. But, like so many guides, he fell out before he accomplished all that he had promised. For scarcely had the two traveled a day's journey when they came upon a prodigious growth of wild figs, and the greedy toucan would go no farther.

Those were hard hours for poor White Wing. The river valley was dark and hot, and in the night he was perpetually wakened by the startling sounds around him. Such noisy parrots he had never dreamed of, nor such millions of burning insects that flashed and flashed their lanterns till the heavy vines and palm leaves seemed afire with them. And the screams of terror that rose from the dark depths of the forest when the great cats or the powerful snakes seized their prey, chilled his blood.

But the days brought him at last to higher ground, and finally to a wonderful plain where it all seemed but so many miles of lawn and clear smooth waters. He took heart. Suddenly the mountains came in sight. Yes, and one of them was sending out a thin stream of smoke into the cloudless sky. Another day, possibly that very night, he would reach the city of the Emperor.

Very wisely he waited for the dawn. He had seen the high walls, and the housetops, and the glittering armaments of the palace as they glowed in the sunset, and he had heard strange music, a sweet confusion of lovely sounds. But from the cliffs above the river he watched and waited and preened his beautiful white suit.

When morning came, just as the mountains were pink and the city was cool and gray, a grand procession mounted a great rock above the Emperor's palace. Trains of slaves and priests there were, the sounds of drums, and a heavy, solemn chanting. The Emperor was to greet the sun and they were all to worship the great light, for it was their deity.

Then White Wing soared high above them all. His great white form was suddenly thrown against the rising sun, and it was beautiful beyond comparison. No living bird had ever seemed so lovely. He could see the crowds of men and women and the ranks of priests start back in one motion of surprise. Then he floated down, slowly and with great calm, alighting on the stone altar where the Emperor was staring upward in amaze.

From that hour, after the court had recovered from its surprise, White Wing was almost an emperor himself. A park was made for him and slaves were in attendance. The tenderest of tiny fish and juicy snails were given him to eat, and he was a familiar of that barbaric household whose slightest inclination was taken to be law, and whose smallest preferences were translated into royal commands. He was ceremoniously tethered with a golden chain and a clasp of blue jewels to his thin leg, but even such a regal restraint was abandoned and the jewels and the beaten gold and the turquoise were made into a neck chain which he wore with great dignity.

Never could the Emperor enter into his councils and audiences without the Prince of the Dawn, as he was called; and White Wing was a sage and judicial counselor. He would stand for hours on one leg, his jewels flashing upon his breast, his head turned at a knowing angle, as if in the profoundest thought, a very embodiment of wisdom beside the throne. In reality he was sound asleep, a condition wherein he set an immortal example for ministers of state.

For years he dwelt in splendor and acquired great wisdom. And for the little princes and princesses, who were many and lovely, he had great affection.

But of his love for one princess in particular and of the jealousies which grew up so that his life was plotted against and he was at last to be undone, there is another story which the wonderful Mrs. Leatherback is always slow to relate.